Surgical navigation systems, also known as computer assisted surgery and image guided surgery, aid surgeons in locating patient anatomical structures, guiding surgical instruments, and implanting medical devices with a high degree of accuracy. Surgical navigation has been compared to a global positioning system that aids vehicle operators to navigate the earth. A surgical navigation system typically includes a computer, a tracking system, and patient anatomical information. The patient anatomical information can be obtained by using an imaging mode such as fluoroscopy, computer tomography (CT) or simply by defining locations on the patient's anatomy with the surgical navigation system. Surgical navigation systems can be used for a wide variety of surgeries to improve patient outcomes.
To successfully implant a medical device, surgical navigation systems often employ various forms of computing technology, as well as utilize intelligent instruments, digital touch devices, and advanced 3-D visualization software programs. All of these components enable surgeons to perform a wide variety of standard and minimally invasive surgical procedures and techniques. Moreover, these systems allow surgeons to more accurately plan, track and navigate the placement of instruments and implants relative to a patient's body, as well as conduct pre-operative and intra-operative body imaging.
To accomplish the accurate planning, tracking and navigation of surgical instruments, tools and/or medical devices during a surgical navigation procedure, surgeons often utilize “tracking arrays” that are coupled to the surgical components. The tracking arrays allow the surgeon to accurately track the location of these surgical components, as well as the patient's bones during the surgery. By knowing the physical location of the tracking array, the software detection program of the tracking system is able to calculate the position of the tracked component relative to a surgical plan image.
It is known to employ bone morphing techniques in which points on the surface of a bone, for instance, a femur, are collected to create a three-dimensional patient bone surface. That is, a virtual representation of the bone is created by acquiring the spatial position coordinates corresponding to several points collected on the surface of the bone, and subsequently mapping the spatial position coordinates to create a digital model of the bone. This technique is sometimes referred to as “painting.” This painted surface is then compared to a series of bone models and the model most closely resembling the surface is chosen. The chosen bone model is then scaled three-dimensionally such that the database model matches the patient's anatomy in those regions that were painted. The “morphed” database model is then displayed to the surgeon on a monitor. While this technique is generally useful for generating a representative bone model of a patient undergoing a surgical navigation process, the process has limitations. For instance, many surgeons find these morphing processes to be too expensive, cumbersome and time-consuming for wide acceptance and regular use. Thus, it would be desirable to overcome these and other shortcomings of the prior art.